The present article studies the epictetean philosophical use of some passages of the Greek and Roman history. The concepts of love-friendship (philía) and personal con- venience (sumphéron) second the philosopher to explain why happiness (eudaimonía) has not been reached by the human being in all history. All historical war or strife (pólemos), such as the Trojan, the Medics and the Peloponnesian wars, is provoked by epistemological-moral mistakes derived from the ignorance of which is the correct place to put the sumphéron; (...) such correct place is only the personal “rational capacity” ( proháiresis). This causal explanation of the incorrect and vicious human actions, of which history is full and which destroy the existent philía between nations and provoke pólemos, constitutes an authentic epictetean philosophy of history. Nevertheless, those vicious actions have a justification in a superior Cosmological level because they are pre-determined and ordered by the God-Providence. This leads us to the possibility of observing that the stoic philosophy of history, particularly the epictetean, is analogous to some modern speculative systems of history like the ones developed by Vico or Hegel. (shrink)

En el drama Las troyanas de Séneca el Joven, según proponemos, existen argumentos e ideas de la filosofía estoica en torno a las emociones y las pasiones. Tales ideas, derivadas de la teoría ética-epistemológica estoica, están insertas en los discursos de personajes como Hécuba, Andrómaca, Agamenón o Helena. Séneca exhibe la historia-mito de la Guerra de Troya como una fuente de emociones erróneas, es decir, de pasiones que alejan a los personajes de la virtud-felicidad. Consecuentemente, el autor nos presenta discursos, (...) en boca de sus personajes, que instan a evitar estoicamente esas pasiones, como lo son el miedo, el dolor o el orgullo excesivos. (shrink)